Sunday, February 28, 2010

We have spent much of the winter playing hard. We begin each week with our Tracks & Trails group (formerly referred to as waldschule, we made the change because people had trouble pronouncing it). Regardless of the amount of snow on the ground, as long as it's 20 degrees or above, Monday finds us in the woods tracking animals, converting sticks into swords, climbing trees, comparing mosses, spotting cardinals and bluejays, listening for deer and other woodland creatures, climbing hills and using our bums as make-shift sleds. While we often don't make it very far into the trail - because we've discovered a magical shelter someone left behind, a giant log that resembles a dragon or simply because Violet is, yet again, demanding cheese - our time spent in the great outdoors is never wasted.

While we did not see a Bald Eagle or a Brown Thrasher, we did see a Hairy Woodpecker, several Bluejays, a Red-Bellied Woodpecker, Chickadees, Nuthatches, Tufted Titmice and several Cardinals. We then forgot to keep track of how many. Oh well.